Nowhere to Hide: Return Of The Demon

Chapter 1

“Pears, applesauce, pizza sauce, chunky milk, oh! Can I use your fruit snacks?” Maddie said making her concoction with everything she could possibly find.

“Fine.” Kayla said throwing her fruit snacks into Maddie’s hands. It had been three days since Emily, Kayla, and Maddie escaped the underworld. And now someone else has been possesed. Emily, Kayla, Maddie, and Ethan were gonna find out who it is.

“So Maddie, why didn’t my memory get erased?” Ethan asked Maddie. She paused.

“The memory fog can only go so far.” She said finishing the concoction. Everyone went silent after that. Only the familiar sounds of people mingling and the clashing of lunch trays was heard. They all sat in the corner of the table trying to keep people from hearing their conversation. If anyone did, they would freak out, then laugh at them and think what they’re saying is fake. But it’s not. It was real. All too real. To tell the truth, none of them wanted anything to do with this. The whole demons, and murders, and underworld stuff was just too much to believe. But they had to find out. If they didn’t, who would?

“Almost done…… There. Finished.” Maddie smiled as she dropped the last fruit snack into the concoction. “Anybody up for some Royal Concoction? I’ll give you two bucks if you take a sip.” She wiggled her eyebrows convincingly.  Kayla, Ethan, and Emily all shook their heads, looking disgusted.

“Oh come on! It doesn’t look that bad does it?” Maddie laughed.  

“Yeah. It looks that bad.” Emily said moving away from the probably poisonous concoction. Maddie rolled her eyes and stood up with her tray. Kayla, Emily, and Ethan wiped down the lunch table and headed for the cafeteria door with Maddie quickly following. When the four friends reached the gym door, Maddie stopped dead.

“What is it?” Emily asked. Without a word, Maddie ran towards the doors at the end of the hall. Emily, Kayla, and Ethan followed. Maddie ran out of the door and stopped. She was looking at the woods ahead.

“Maddie, what’s wrong.” Kayla asked. Maddie’s eyes widened.

“He’s near.” She finally said. “I can sense him.” Everyone knew what Maddie was talking about. The demon. The demon who possessed the mystery body in the percussion room a couple days ago. And he was near.

“Where is he?” Ethan asked. Maddie pointed to the woods.

“In there.” She said.

“What do we do?” Emily asked.

“I say we hunt him down.” Kayla said.

“It won’t be that easy. It’s in the woods. He could be anywhere.” Maddie said. She took a step forward and a bow appeared in her hand. Another step, the sheath of arrows followed. The more steps she took, the more weapons she gathered. By the time she stopped, she had various knives and daggers, plenty of arrows, a long sword, an axe, and she had completely changed clothes without even moving. She now had dark jeans, a forest camouflage shirt and worn leather combat boots. The rest of the group stood in surprise at the doors.

“Being possesed does come with some lasting perks.” Maddie smiled, then motioned for everyone to follow. When they reached her, Emily had two swords strapped across her back, daggers at her belt, and a crossbow in her hand. Kayla looked the same. Ethan had one sword on his back and a lot of throwing daggers attached to his belt. Everyone was dressed the same. Dark jeans, Camo shirt, and soundless boots. Maddie smiled at her work.

“It does work on you guys too.” She turned around and headed towards the woods. When she got to the tree line, she swung her bow over her back, next to her sheath of arrows, and unlatched the axe from her belt. She motioned silently for everyone to do the same. Emily and Kayla loaded their crossbows, and Ethan had at least three throwing daggers in each hand.

“We need to split up. Your weapons have special marks on them that should get the demon out of him. Just try not to kill the poor kid, would ‘ya? I don’t want to go to jail.” Maddie said. Everyone nodded and went their separate ways. Emily went east, Kayla went west, Ethan went north-east, and Maddie went north. Emily took careful steps avoiding snapable twigs, and logs. She had her crossbow loaded, and ready. She heard the familiar sounds of the forest flow into her ears. The birds singing, the trees swaying, the wind blowing. Right when Maddie vanished from her sight into the forest, Emily realized she now alone.

Alone.

She kept walking, then everything went silent. Too silent. The trees stopped swaying, the wind stopped blowing, and the birds stopped singing. He's near. Emily thought. Then she heard a snap of a twig. She whipped around.

Nothing.

Someone was there. Someone, or something. Everything was still. Then she jumped to the sound of a deathly scream. A familiar scream. But not of Kayla, or Maddie, or Ethan. It was someone else. Then something caught her eye. Above the trees. Something flew past her. Something red, and black. Something armed with weapons. Then Emily realized it was a someone. Someone familiar. 

Then the figure swept by again. Each time, closer and closer. Emily waited for a clear shot, then fired at the figure, but it made a loud ‘clang’. The arrow came flying back at her head and she ducked just in time.  The figure dived towards her at a fast pace. Emily franticly shot as many arrows as she could, trying to get the figure to back away. But it wouldn’t stop. She screamed loudly and took a knife off her back and swung at it as it got within touching distance. It easily dodged all her blows. The figure swallowed her up quickly, muffling her screams. In seconds, both Emily and the figure were gone.